The Silent Prophet Read Online Free Page B

like a pious worshipper in a church, he was seized by the fear that he did not know the All-Important, and that one life might be too short to gain experience of it. He read and learned hastily, unsystematically, following changing inclinations, attracted by a title or a recollection of having heard of it before. He filled notebooks with observations that he took to be 'fundamental' and was almost inconsolable if a phrase, a date, a name escaped him. He listened to all lectures, necessary and unnecessary. He was always to be seen in the auditorium, always in the last row, which was also usually the highest. From there he overlooked the bent heads of the audience, the open white notebooks, the tiny blurred shorthand. The professor was so far away that to a certain extent he had lost his private humanity, was no more than a purveyor of knowledge. But Friedrich remained solitary, surrounded by candid faces in which nothing was evident but youth. One could, at a pinch, distinguish the races. Social differences were recognizable only by secondary characteristics. The well-to-do had manicured fingernails, tiepins, well-cut suits. All around a stone-deaf stolid wellbeing.
    Only in the eyes of some Jewish students there shone a shrewd, a crafty or even a foolish melancholy. But it was the melancholy of blood and race, handed down to the individual and acquired by him without risk. In the same way, the others had inherited their wellbeing. Only groups distinguished themselves from each other by ribbons, colours, convictions. They prepared themselves for a barrack-room life and each already carried his rifle, his so-called 'Ideal'.
    At that time we had a common acquaintance named Leopold Scheller, who happened to be the only student with whom Friedrich associated. He concealed nothing, always told the truth, naturally only the truth as he knew it, and put up with any insult that was flung at him. He did not believe it could be meant personally. If anyone offended his honour, as he saw it, by a look or a deliberate or chance shove in the Great Hall, it was not so much a matter of his honour, as that of the students' club to which he belonged. When Friedrich was bored he went to Scheller, who did not seem to be acquainted with boredom. He was always preoccupied with his philosophy of life.
    He once surprised Friedrich with the information that he had got engaged. And he at once reached into his trouser-pocket, where he usually carried his pistol in a leather case. On this occasion he took out a wallet and out of the wallet a photograph. He noted Friedrich's amazement and said: 'My fiancée has taken my pistol away. She won't permit it.'
    The photograph showed a pretty young woman of some eighteen years. She had black eyes and hair. 'She's certainly not a blonde then,' said Friedrich.
    'She is Italian,' replied Scheller evenly, as if he had never been a Teuton.
    'But,' persisted Friedrich, 'what are you doing with an Italian girl?'
    'Love conquers all,' began Scheller. 'It is the greatest power on earth. Besides, I shall be making a German of her.'
    'And how long have you known the lady?'
    'Since the day before yesterday,' replied Scheller, beaming. 'I accosted her in the park.'
    'And engaged already?'
    'There's nothing else for it—either, or.'
    'And your Club?'
    'I'm resigning. Because she doesn't care for it. I wrote today to ask her father for her hand. He is a bank-clerk in Milan. My fiancée is with relatives here. We are getting married in two months' time. How do you like her?'
    'Enormously!'
    'Don't you agree? She is beautiful? She is unique?' And he laid a small piece of tissue-paper over the photograph and tucked it away again in his pistol pocket.
    Although Friedrich did not consider Scheller's happiness lasting and feared disillusion for his friend, he nevertheless experienced in the proximity of this infatuation the warming reflection of a bliss not previously encountered, and he sunned himself in the other's love as if he